


Admiration of the Mud Rollers.

by his tongue and liver (doubleinfinity)



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - High School, Boys In Love, Drabble, Falling In Love, High School, M/M, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Pigs, like lil pigs, lil boys, snorting all over each other, swine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 20:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8861758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubleinfinity/pseuds/his%20tongue%20and%20liver
Summary: After high school, Chris and Eddie stomp over a fence to visit the pigs at a farm.  Eddie tries to find something to tell Chris about himself.





	

They snort as they scrounge, bringing up noses caked in dirt. 

Eddie leans over the wire mesh, elbows scraped by the sharp twists of twine that fence in the pigs. It’s not much in the way of a barrier. On the way in, accomplishing a poor job of sneaking around the perimeter, his male company had accidentally tripped over the loosely-barbed railing that frames the farmland, crushing it into the dirt with his coarse shoes. Eddie has witnessed enough bulwarks to know when somebody is serious about keeping things contained. He’s owned enough- established specialized turrets to keep his thoughts trapped in his brain, safely distant from others.

But when Chris is around, there is no pigpen more flimsy than the enclosure he’s attempted to set up around him. Hearing that request: _tell me something honest_ , was all Eddie needed for the vulnerability to empty out his marrow.

He thinks that Chris is probably doing that turned-up smile thing from where he stands hunched against the barn’s exterior. Eddie is aware of the presence, waiting patiently just outside of the shaded pen, but doesn’t brave a look in his direction. “Uh, okay. Honesty.” Eddie rolls the word around, letting it stick to his gums as he tries to word a response.

 _Honestly_ , the sight of the pink, boorish hairs sends a prickle of distaste up Eddie’s arms, along with the urge to scratch at his body until he can slough off his own follicles. What brand of honesty does Chris demand, when he implies he wants to know Eddie? A printed list of his former addresses, or maybe just his favorite subjects in school? His middle name? A comprehensive DSM-5 entry on the nuances of OCD?

Chris, on the other hand, doesn’t have to provide anything in writing. He is a mud roller; like the flaps of skin pulled up on the pig’s snouts, his face conveys his nature. In life, he is obnoxiously unafraid of the filth around him, and so he coats himself shamelessly in it.

The tip of Eddie’s knuckles tentatively brush the portly texture of the belly of a pig.

As a brown swine slumps onto the ground, releasing a harsh snort, Eddie wonders what honesty he could possibly provide that would impress these candid creatures of god.

The noise runs through Eddie, soft enough to make his lips part. “I didn’t- just pick a random place for us to break into,” he admits hesitantly, urged prematurely into that demonstrative catharsis which honesty seems to demand. Chris turns to him, interested. He blushes. “My family owns the farm.”

And yet it had seemed to be such an opportunity to appear illicitly spontaneous, something he found Chris accomplishing simply in the way that no unnecessary boundary remained respected by him. Chris was not nervous when he ordered coffee, and he often divulged too much to strangers. He expressed his admiration with brutish love, but the force of his rawness left Eddie unharmed. It had seemed, at the time, that hopping a fence would impress the other.

Chris laughs suddenly, stepping forward. He bends down and runs the flat of his palms over the pig’s body, ruffling its fur between the thickness of his fingers. “I know who you are, Eddie,” he answers before hefting the pig into his arms and cradling its squirming body with a laugh of pleasure.

The thought to kiss him escapes the border of Eddie’s mind, if not for the mud that would get on his face


End file.
